More on the Money

The Center for Responsive Politics has released its estimates on the cost of campaigns for the 2006 elections. Overall, the big spenders were the big winners - among the decided House races the high spender was the winner 398 of 425 times. Among decided Senate races, it was 22 out of 32.

The total cost of the election has been revised up to $2.8 billion, which is a staggering sum of money until you consider the average cost to win a House race came out to $960,000 and the average cost to win a Senate seat came to $7.8 million. Incidentally, the most expensive congressional race was Senator Hillary Clinton's mostly ceremonial bid for re-election in New York: she vastly outspent her opponent and the two combined to spend $45.7 million.

CRP has also put together campaign finance profiles on the new members of Congress - they all had to play the fundraising game, will the ones who promised reform be able to stick to their guns?

Thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics as always for these resources.